Page 27 of Hard Pass

Am I that egotistical that I expected the star college quarterback and number-one draft pick, a man who no doubt always has women begging for his attention, to remember me of all people? The girl who led him on in her drunken bravado and then . . .

Yeah, well there’s a reason it was forgettable.

But clearly, I am that egotistical.

I exhale slowly.

It was one night. One moment. A version of me who doesn’t exist anymore. And Cole? He was exactly who I thought he was. Confident and charming. A man who doesn’t think twice about something like that.

It’s better this way. Right?

I bark out another laugh. Right. It definitely is. It’ll make this whole situation cleaner. Five years ago, I needed to be someone different because I wasn’t one hundred percent comfortable in my own shoes.

I am now though. I’ve proven myself in ways that actually matter. In my career. In my life.

It’s for the best that he doesn’t remember me.

I push myself upright, setting my phone aside as my laptop pings with incoming emails.

The beginning of a case is always the toughest. Too much information. Too many suppositions. A million floating theories that need to be whittled down to just one.

That’s all it takes to suck me into a case. Details are my thing and man, does this case have a lot of them.

Cole Valor. His name sits at the top of everything. Game stats. Practice reports. Limited medical evaluations due to HIPPA laws. Interviews. Financials. His background. And then there are the bets placed in intervals that shouldn’t mean anything, except they do.

The amount of data is overwhelming.

But one thing stands—the timing of the wagers lines up too neatly with dips in performance. It suggests awareness and hints at some kind of insider knowledge.

None of it is solid proof—not even close—but it’s enough to get flagged. Enough to have GIA send me in to start asking questions.

I reach for my legal pad beside me and tap my pen on it as I scan the list I’ve started building—names of coaches, trainers, teammates, staff. All connections that form a web around the athlete in question. A web that will eventually lead me to more clues or a conclusion.

So far though, the web around Cole doesn’t lead me to any particular conclusion. There’s no click, no quiet sense of alignment that tells me I’m on the right track. Rather there’s just a lot of superfluous noise with too many moving parts that don’t form a clear picture.

I pull my legs up beneath me and try to look at it from a different angle.

A rookie contract for fifty-seven million dollars over four years. Would he really be willing to risk that and his career? And if so, for what?

It’s not normally greed at this level. It’s something else. A favor. A debt. A mistake that spirals into a situation the athlete can’t control.

I’ve seen it before, more times than I care to count, and every time, the reason might be different, but the outcome never is.

Usually the data and my instincts talk to me. It’s early going, but as of now, all I hear is silence.

That tells me this case might take some time to solve. The bonus is I get to be at home while working it.

My gaze drifts to the bookshelves across the room. Framed photos line it—my parents with their arms wrapped around each other in a way that makes a relationship look simple. That’s yet to be my experience in the limited number of boyfriends I’ve had. Another of my sister caught mid-laugh and carefree. Next to them is a half-finished paint-by-number canvas, the edges still blank where I’d meant to come back to it when I had time.

I haven’t touched it in months.

I probably won’t.

It’ll sit there a while longer before getting shoved in a cupboard to eventually be thrown away like every other half-finished attempt at relaxing ends up.

Next time it’ll be different.

I huff out a quiet laugh because that’s what I said the time before that too.